WASHINGTON  Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said Thursday her staff will start working with the Obama administration on deploying more troops along her state's porous border with Mexico, even as they continue to argue about Arizona's new immigration law.

The two had a cordial discussion about how to follow through on President Obama's plan to send 1,200 more National Guard troops to the Arizona-Mexico border, Brewer said. Obama seeks to increase the federal Border Patrol budget by $500 million.

"We know we're not going to agree on certain issues until other issues are worked out," Brewer said after an Oval Office meeting with Obama. Those issues include the Arizona law, which the Republican governor signed in April, requiring police enforcing another law to question a person's immigration status if there is reasonable suspicion the person is in the country illegally.

Brewer said Obama made little comment on whether the administration would sue her state over the law, saying he would leave that to the Justice Department. Brewer said she would defend the law, which will take effect July 29, all the way to the Supreme Court.

According to a White House statement on the meeting, Obama said Arizona's law and similar efforts by more than 20 states would interfere with the federal government's responsibility to set and enforce immigration policy.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama discussed his administration's efforts to stop illegal immigration. He said the president advocated immigration changes that include pathways to citizenship for illegal immigrants in the USA, as well as methods to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants.

Brewer said a pathway to citizenship should come after border security is improved. She has said she signed the law because she believes Washington failed to do its part to protect the U.S.-Mexican border.

Obama said Thursday in a TV interview that he understands the frustration in Arizona but the law is the wrong way to go about solving the problem. "I think this puts American citizens, who ... are Hispanic, potentially in an unfair situation," he told CNN's Larry King.

Outside the White House, protesters noisily greeted Brewer as she arrived for the meeting.

Hundreds walked on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House, holding signs, chanting, "Jan Brewer, shame on you," beating drums and, in the case of one man, strumming a guitar.

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